


The Meaning of An Orchid

by abrandnewheart



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, and daichi does piercings, and suga's a baker, generic tattooist/florist au, it's only rated teen for a little bit of swearing, the flowers have meanings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 12:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5048167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrandnewheart/pseuds/abrandnewheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bokuto is a florist just opening up a new store. Akaashi does tattoos in his place across the street. Naturally Akaashi goes to introduce himself, and it all just goes from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meaning of An Orchid

It was an unusual thing to see, a florist. At least for around this part of town, which was overrun by students and first-time homeowners. They weren’t the typical sort of clients for these places, surely? No, the picture Akaashi had of a florist was one where rich, snooty upper-class people went when they just had to have the perfect arrangement for their sitting room. Anyone else who wanted flowers just got them from the local supermarkets. Inexpensive, but bright and cheerful, which was all Akaashi wanted if he ever took a notion towards having some in his apartment. Not elaborate creations like people used at weddings, though of course he could see how pretty such things were. They were just much too expensive. 

 

Still. Going over and making himself known could hardly be the worst thing ever. Besides which, the display in the window was-- well. Gorgeous. Maybe if he was kind and introduced himself then he’d be able to sit and stay and observe and practice drawing flowers. More and more people seemed to like the idea of decorating their skin with something delicate, miles away from the old-school skulls and snakes. So, flowers were on the up, and observation was the only way to learn how to ink them better. 

So into the store it was, bell jingling as he pushed the door open. 

Almost immediately he was bombarded with colour. There were huge displays all over the place, sunflowers above his head and rows and rows of buckets filled with roses and lilies and carnations and gerberas and even more that he didn’t have names for. 

Akaashi gets so caught up in looking around him that he manages to walk straight into a man in a yellow apron.  
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” he says, looking up, cheeks ever so slightly pink. “I wasn’t watching where I was going and -” It clicks, now, and he realises that this is, in fact, someone who works here, if not the owner himself. Shit. Even worse.  
“Don’t worry about it,” His voice is cheery and matches the store easily. “It’s not like I’m hurt, it was just an accident.” He smiles widely, and it puts Akaashi at ease. No hard feelings, then. “Is there anything I can help you with?”  
“Oh, no,” Akaashi answers, shaking his head. “I just wanted to come over and introduce myself. I work across the street.”

The other man pauses, then, peers out the window and then nods his head. “You must be in the bakery. Gotcha.”  
Akaashi is about to agree- has his mouth open to talk, even, but he snaps it back shut and shakes his head. “No?” How could he possibly have been mistaken for working in there? The man who owns the bakery is possibly even cheerier than the one who works here, is the sort who looks after anybody and everybody and everything is pink or pastel coloured. Akaashi looks down at himself, and frowns; no, he hadn’t suddenly had a wardrobe change. Everything was still black, and he knows he changed at least a couple of his piercings that morning, so they ought to still be there.  
“It’s called a joke,” Florist-worker-slash-owner says, though he looks almost disheartened that he had to explain himself. “I get it, it’s the tattoo place over there, isn’t it?”  
“Oh. Uh. Yeah.”  
“Do you do the tattoos and stuff yourself?”  
“I do?”  
“That’s so wicked! You must be really good at art, huh? Oh! And I never introduced myself! I’m Bokuto Koutarou and I run this place! You’re totally welcome over here any time you want, okay?”

Whatever that bad mood was for all of two seconds, it looked like it was gone, for now, and Akaashi gives a brief smile. “Akaashi,” he answers. “Akaashi Keiji. And same to you. You ever want any work done, I’m your guy.”  
“Uh- then I guess if you ever need flowers then I’m your guy?” He looks confused, bless him, but the offer is sweet, regardless.  
“Sounds like a deal to me.” He smiles, then takes a second to glance at his watch. “I’d stay and chat for a bit, but I have a client coming in in about twenty minutes and I really need to go set up. I’ll stop by some other time, okay?”  
“Sure! Nice to meet you, Akaashi!”

~

It’s a few days before Akaashi has time to return, and he’s armed with a sketchbook and some pencils. Bokuto had seemed sweet before, and Akaashi’s brought snacks from the bakery as a - not a bribe, but... sort of a bribe. A ‘let me sit here and draw flowers’ bribe. 

“Akaashi!” Bokuto near shouts as soon as Akaashi is through the door. “Nice to see you again!”  
“Nice to see you too, Bokuto. I have a favour to ask.”  
“A favour? Sure!”  
“You don’t even know what it is yet,” Akaashi takes a few steps towards the counter where Bokuto’s standing, head tilted to the side.  
“Doesn’t matter, I’ll probably still say yes.”

Akaashi rolls his eyes, but it’s not mean. He sets the cardboard box from the bakery on the counter, then, and then his sketchbook beside it. “I would like to sit and draw for a bit. There’s been a lot of people wanting flowers done recently and -”  
“That’s fine.”  
“Are you sure?”  
“One hundred percent sure!” 

Akaashi smiles, and nudges the paper bag towards Bokuto. “I’ll have a quick look around then. You take whatever of the pastries you want, okay? My treat.”

Bokuto nods enthusiastically, pulling the box towards him and popping it open. Akaashi doesn’t stay to look at what he selects, instead turning to go and look around the store. 

And then he comes across a stunning flower that he doesn’t know the name of. “Bokuto,” he says, waving his hand so as to make the man come over. “What is this called?”  
Bokuto comes over, nodding enthusiastically. “They’re pretty, right? That’s an alstroemeria. Sometimes they’re called Peruvian lilies instead though. They come in all sorts of colours too, y’know! Pink and white and purple and yellow and sometimes they have two colours on the same petal!”  
“They’re gorgeous.”  
Bokuto pulls one from the bucket, a large pink and yellow version that looks like a sunset. “Here. If you like it that much then it’s yours.”  
“Don’t be silly, Bokuto, I can’t take your stock-”  
“No, take it!” He insists, pulling a pout. “Besides, it’s a flower that means friendship anyway, so you deserve it! We’re friends now! And I’ve had loads of customers! Lots of people getting married round here, you know. They all need flowers.”  
“If you insist,” Akaashi murmurs, plucking the flower from Bokuto’s hand. “It’s very pretty. And I had no idea business was so good for you.”  
“Uh-huh it is! But ooh, look, here’s my favourite flowers- ” He takes Akaashi’s hand, leading him around the aisles until he finds the ones he wants. “Those ones! Those are birds of paradise flowers. Super cool, right?”  
“Definitely.”

 

They spend at least half an hour looking at plants, Bokuto telling him bits and pieces of meanings or rules about when to send them when he has the information. It’s more interesting than Akaashi would have thought it to be before he began. After his brief guided tour, he retrieves his sketchpad, Bokuto brings him a chair from the back room, and he sits by the roses and starts to draw. Roses. Boring, almost, compared to everything else so wonderful in the store, but they’re what’s popular in tattoos, and so he knows he ought to start with them. 

It is dark outside by the time he is finished, and he looks up, eyebrows furrowed, finding Bokuto sitting behind his counter, looking down at his phone.  
“Bokuto!” He says, absolutely aghast at the idea that he’s kept them both here so late. “What time is it?”  
“Uh, seven?”  
“And what time do you normally close up at?”  
“Six.”  
“Why didn’t you kick me out?”  
“We’re friends now, Akaashi, remember?” Bokuto says, and he gives another of those wide smiles that Akaashi suspects is his trademark. “I don’t mind. I got some inventory stuff done anyway, so it’s fine.”  
“Are you sure?” Akaashi asks, flipping his sketchbook shut once more.  
“Sure I’m sure!”

Akaashi sighs, relieved. Bokuto doesn’t seem too frustrated, or even frustrated or angry at all, so perhaps this wasn’t so awful a thing to do. “Alright then. I should head home, though. I’ll see you around, Bokuto.”  
“See ya, Akaashi!”

~

Akaashi somehow makes his way into sitting there nearly every day that he isn’t entirely booked up with clients. Sawamura is more than capable of running the place without him there, even if he did drop a whole stack of papers when the baker from next door came in and told Sawamura that he wanted a nipple piercing. (It was a joke. What he’d really wanted was a tongue stud and to get his ears pierced). 

He’s given free flowers periodically. Yellow roses, it had started with, ‘because you’re always drawing them!’ a purple chrysanthemum, an iris. There had been jonquil plants too, though Akaashi was sure they were just daffodils by another name. An aster, a white carnation, lots of gardenias. So many. He’d been given a whole bunch on one occasion. “I know you like them, Akaashi! You should practice drawing them!” Bokuto had come over with a gloxinia plant in a pot for them to keep on their desk in the store, too. 

Bokuto always refuses Akaashi’s offers of giving him ink or getting Sawamura to do a piercing or two in return. “It’ll hurt too much,” he says when Akaashi mentions it. “Besides, I wouldn’t know what to get!” 

It’s fair. Akaashi’s had a bit of work done himself, and some of the stuff is pretty damn painful. 

On more than one occasion, Bokuto has brought it upon himself to sprinkle Akaashi’s hair with tiny little flowers. Forget-me-nots, Bokuto usually goes with, and he takes his time placing them in Akaashi’s curls. Akaashi doesn’t mind, not really, except when he forgets that they’re there and ends up with people looking at him strangely. 

~

It’s six months after they met when he gets presented with a purple orchid the second he walks into Bokuto’s store that afternoon. “Akaashi!” He says, intense in a way that Akaashi isn’t sure he’s ever seen before. “Please go on a date with me!”

And Akaashi blinks, more than a little confused. “What? Me?”  
“Yes, you! Oh, this was so stupid, I shouldn’t have bothered-”  
“Hey, hey,” Akaashi says then, shaking his head and taking the little potted flower from Bokuto’s hands to set it aside before he drops it. He replaces the hold on the flower with a hold on his hands, instead. “Don’t get all dejected. I didn’t say no.”  
“But you didn’t say yes either!”  
“Okay. Then yes. I just didn’t know you were interested like that.”

And then Bokuto’s face falls even further than it had before. “But- but Akaashi! I was giving you all those flowers!”  
“I thought you were just being nice!”  
“But- but I told you about what they meant that time!”

Akaashi blinks, looking up and breathing an, “Oh. That’s what that was? A long-winded confession?”  
“I mean- uh. Yes. Sort of.”  
“Adorable. Adorable. Yes, I’ll go on a date, and you’ll just have to tell me what all the plants mean again. I can’t remember them all.”

Bokuto’s face lights up again, back to his trademark megawatt smile. “Let’s go do that right now, okay? I’m gonna teach you right now!”  
“Sounds good to me, Koutarou.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, my tumblr is abrandnewheart.tumblr.com . Follow me for sweet-ass volleyball player action. Aw yeah.
> 
> Or, y'know, if you want to keep up with my writing endeavors. That's cool too.
> 
>  
> 
> Also psst you know flowers have meanings the ones Bokuto was giving Akaashi are a+ and important.


End file.
